The old program ads, sold door-to-door, block-by-block, fast-food restaurants, sit-down joints and sundry others, are both footnote and foundation.
Learning on the fly to drive the team’s modified-beater school bus, the one painted by the inmates at the Oregon State Penitentiary, in a fit of Cosmo Kramer-meets-reality likewise helped shape the nascent moments of a journey more than four decades in its arc.
Robin Pflugrad has coached in multiple Rose Bowls, been part of iconic teams at both Arizona State and Washington State, toiled in near-resourceless programs and helped chart the course for Montana’s ascension in Football Championship Subdivision play as that program’s former head coach.
Now, though, Pflugrad – most recently on staff the past several seasons alongside his son, Aaron, at Northern Arizona – has driven his last team bus, swapped his last program ad-space for comped team meals and retired from a career that spanned more than 40 years and touched parts of five decades.
“You know I just think passion has a ton to do with it, and when I started, I helped out as a volunteer coach a little bit in 1980, but I went into business thinking I was going to make all this money,” said Pflugrad, who had worked for a Portland-area shipping company doing manual labor before transitioning into a marketing and sales position upon completion of his business degree from Portland State. “I found out pretty quickly along the way, I wasn’t coaching and I was just trying to get back in it, which brings back that deal about passion.
“What the profession is and I had some great, great coaches growing up and again in college, but coaching was kind of like these guys really make a difference not only in my life but so many teammates who could have gone astray. My mentors did an outstanding job keeping young men focused, to go on to college, get their degree and be able to go out in life and have a chance to be successful.
“I think most all places, our goals were to get that college degree for our players and become worthwhile citizens, do something productive in life. Those were on our walls as goals as a staff, I really think most everywhere I’ve ever been.”
Those two Rose Bowl appearances – the iconic 1996 Arizona State squad; the plucky 2002 Washington State team – hardly are the only distinguishing moments throughout a career that saw Pflugrad, in aggregate, be a part of winning more games than his teams lost.
The 2011 Big Sky Coach of the Year during his truncated two-year run atop the Montana program, Pflugrad also helped Phoenix College snap a winning drought that spanned some five seasons and 50 games.
“There are some individual moments of comeback-wins at Montana, when mathematically we were totally out of it and came back and won it,” said Pflugrad, who punctuated his time atop the Montana program with a trip to the FCS semifinals. “The Rose Bowl team at Arizona State, we took that job, Arizona State was 3-8 the year before, Coach (Bruce) Snyder was kind of on the bubble. A lot of my friends and colleagues said it’s silly to go down there, but there comes point where you do everything you can at a certain place and then you have to think about yourself, too. I think that’s probably a good memory, too, and maybe a good lesson. I don’t know if many young men would agree now, but that loyalty and not jumping off a ship means something.”
So, too, does a coach’s ability to recognize, quite simply, when to just get the hell out of the way. Such was the case on that fabled Sun Devils squad, especially as it pertained first and foremost to the late, great Pat Tillman, as well as quarterback Jake Plummer.
“Pat Tillman was an amazing person and to be able to be around him for three-and-a-half years, when he would take the field at practice, and I was on the offensive side of the ball, but even I knew the defense was in great heads,” Pflugrad said. “Jake Plummer and Pat, they were 10s when we practiced; they were both 10s every day. I can’t say Pat Tillman ever had a bad practice. Never. Can’t say it. And Jake was very similar.
“The biggest thing there, it was us finally realizing let those guys go and stay out of their way. Sometimes, that’s hard to do; coaching is an ego-driven profession, maybe politics, the medical field and college and NFL football are the most egos.”
Robin Pflugrad doesn’t recognize the irony in his own comments, but his son, Aaron Pflugrad, recalls in detail the family moment that remains illustration of his father’s selflessness.
The Washington State Rose Bowl team of destiny represented a stretch of three 10-win seasons in six years for Mike Price on The Palouse, and it had drawn national attention.
As in, Alabama called upon Price to steady its program after Dennis Franchione jettisoned the Crimson Tide for Texas A&M.
Price wanted Pflugrad to join him in what would become an ill-fated stint atop the Alabama program – and the school’s only head coach to never lose a game. When Price had hired Pflugrad into the Wazzou program, mid-summer, Price personally doled out $10,000 to cover the Pflugrad family’s moving expenses.
“I’ll tell a story that he probably didn’t share with you,” said Aaron Pflugrad, who played for his father and graduated from Arizona State after he initiated his career at Oregon. “After the Rose Bowl at Washington State, basically the whole staff was leaving with Mike Price to go to Alabama, and he told me at the Rose Bowl, ‘Hey, we’re going to stay at Washington State.’”
The elder Pflugrad explained the decision rather matter-of-factly.
“He just said because it’s best for our family, we’re staying,” said Aaron, who served as graduate assistant at Arizona State and then generated a climb through the ranks at Northern Arizona to his present post as offensive coordinator and assistant head coach. “That just meant a lot. It showed he’s family first and the type of man I want to be.
“He turned down that chance to go coach at Alabama because that’s what was best for our family and our family going forward. That in that moment made me want to be a coach because it helped me realize, ‘Hey, you can be a coach and also put family first.’ I think that for our family that was something that’s always going to stick with me and be an example of the man I want to be and become. Making a difference is why we do it and why we coach, but it’s also what are you doing for your actual kids and family. To make that sacrifice for us showed the man he is and was and I knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”
Robin Pflugrad counts numerous mentors; Mouse Davis and Don Read, as well as Snyder, Price, Bill Tobin, Bobby Hauck and former Portland State teammate and eventual NFL star quarterback Neil Lomax, whose generosity in opening up his home to Pflugrad allowed him to start his coaching career as a volunteer assistant.
“All those guys won conference, regional or national coach of the year awards,” said Pflugrad, whose father, Roy, played at basketball at Oregon State. “Actually, to be able to win an award like that when I became head coach is just a tremendous memory.
“I was fortunate to be around some great coaches and men.”
Self-deprecating, Robin Pflugrad makes clear he is the lesser athlete in the family. In addition to his father’s time at Oregon State and Aaron’s stints as a player at both Oregon and Arizona State, his wife, Marlene, was a gymnast at Oregon State and his daughter, Amanda, was a cheerleader at Oregon.
As he transitions into retirement, Pflugrad notices the invitations are beginning to change. Wedding notices are being replaced with birth announcements and, in some instances, graduation announcements for the children of former players.
Occasionally, a former player has a son or nephew beginning the recruiting process.
“We’d be at some weddings and my wife would say, ‘Are you gonna have a tear in your eye’,” said Robin Pflugrad, quick to urge young coaches climbing the profession to volunteer to work extra camps, learn to drive the proverbial school bus and do anything to become a dependable asset within the organization. “Well, this guy was pretty special, you know? It was kind of always a joke that we got these invitations, and there was a lot geographically we couldn’t go to, but it’s an emotional profession. You can have a thousand emotions in one day.
“The other thing coming into play more recently is the amount of former players’ children, from those Rose Bowl teams to Montana, so many family members, cousins, sons, nephews that have reached out and asked can you look at my son, recruit him or do you know a place he might fit?,” Pflugrad said. “Again, it’s about relationships. I might know somebody and I might be able to help you.
“It’s been a long road that way but those are the real rewarding things in the profession.”
From playing for his father to coaching alongside him, Aaron Pflugrad has sought to glean every nugget from his father – but also respected his mother’s wishes to separate football from family time.
“My mom, she would always if Dad started to ask when I’d come home for dinner, ‘Hey, why did break in on that option route instead of out,?” Aaron recalled. “And mom would say, ‘NOT AT THE DINNER TABLE!’
“Coaching has been the livelihood of our lives. Can you ever truly shut it all the way off? I don’t think so. But to still able to have that father-son relationship and father-son bond, be it at Oregon and playing or us coaching together, to still able to do things outside of the game and grow our relationship that way has been special.
“That’s why I do it; I want to be a man built for others and put other people first. I got that from my dad and seeing that from him.”